Pursuing Happiness....

Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn’t stop to enjoy it.
~ William Feather

Happiness determines the quality of every instant of our lives. We all have a profound desire to be happy, and yet we find it hard to be happy at all times. If we understand basic principles of happiness and commit them to our memory, we can considerably increase the time we feel happy. Before we proceed further, let us examine the differences between pleasure and happiness.

Pleasure is purely external, and it is dependent on time, place and material objects:  things like a new car, an expensive dress or enjoying your favorite chocolate. After a while, you do not experience the same enjoyment as you did in the beginning, In fact, after a while, you even feel disgusted if you feel the need to experience the same feelings continuously.

Happiness is purely dependent on our internal state of mind. It is a state of well-being filled with the emotions of contentment and gratitude. We should concentrate on developing things internally instead of gathering and collecting objects outside, which is a never-ending process. At some point, the outside objects will result in arrogance, anger, fear and jealousy. On the other hand, we all know that certain things in our heart, like selfless generosity, gratitude, helping others and spirituality, give us serenity and happiness.

Mind-training experts say that our mind cannot hold two contrary feelings at the same time. For example, we cannot love and hate at the same time; we cannot be cruel and compassionate at the same time; and we cannot be happy and sorrowful at the same time. We have to train our minds to counteract negative emotions.

Now that we understand the basic concepts behind happiness, we should engage in these activities.

1. Concentrate on your inner self instead of external objects, as you come to realize that the inner self gives happiness and external objects only give a fleeting pleasure. Loss of these external things may lead to negative emotions.
2. Be grateful for what you already have and express the gratitude at every possible moment of your life. Every act of gratitude is a seed of happiness.
3. Be compassionate to your fellow human beings and participate selflessly in community projects, and soon you will realize that happiness is abundant.
4. Counteract your negative emotions with positive ones. When you feel jealous of someone, look at a person who has less and count your blessings. When you feel helpless, try helping someone who is in need. These acts will help you to appreciate happiness vividly and instantly
5. Be optimistic. Have a positive attitude toward life.
6. Be spiritual and practice meditation as an adjunct to your practice of happiness.

Have clarity in life, determine the things that are really important and valuable and have the wisdom to pay attention to them alone. Practice healthy habits until happiness surrounds you.

Venkateswarlu Kadiveti

Review,Refresh and Restart

Review, refresh and restart your life. This should be our mantra as we conclude one more beautiful year in our lives and as we welcome the New Year with new aspirations and dreams.

It’s time to get our Annual Report. This report is an assessment of how we spent our valuable lives for the past 365 days. It will provide a blueprint of what to do and what not to in the coming year.

Review the year carefully. Recollect and list all the details of your life in the past year. First include your physical, mental, spiritual, intellectual, financial, professional progress.

Secondly, make a list of how you are doing with your human relations — personal, professional and community. 

Lastly, make a list of all the decisions and choices you made and opportunities that you used and missed. Review and make an exhaustive report. The bigger the report, the more you gain in the coming year.

Reviewing life over a year gives you the power to recapture the moments that were lost due to your emotional state and for other reasons. You can analyze things more clearly now that you are emotionally free of them, and you will be able to approach them more rationally in a similar situation in future.

It’s a little like making a mistake in an exam and then realizing the right answer. If you come across the same question in another test, your likelihood of making the same mistake again is reduced.

Refreshing allows you to let go all that you do not need and move on with what matters to you. Once you review everything — just as you do with your computer — trash the unwanted files, treasure those memories that are worth cherishing and reformat yourself for the whole New Year.

Laugh at the silly mistakes you made in the past and commit to not repeating them. Pat yourself on the back for all your accomplishments. This will boost your confidence to launch yourself into the new challenges that await you. Believe that every challenge will reward you, as it did in the past.

We often misunderstand the definition of “restarting.” We think that we have to start everything afresh. This is the reason for our disappointment when we don’t fulfill our resolutions. Some of us even tire of making resolutions and resolve not to make any more!

But the fact is that when you make a resolution and fulfill it, even for a short time, you have accomplished something. As Confucius rightly observes, “It does not matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop.” So restarting, in its real sense, means starting from where you stopped, sometimes many times. Sooner or later, you will accomplish your goals.

”Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.” — Abraham Lincoln

So what are you waiting for? Review, refresh and restart your life. Now.

Venkateswarlu Kadiveti 

Expect the Unexpected

 Life is too complex to comprehend until we understand one simple thing — life is a series of unexpected events. The beauty of life itself lies in its unpredictability. As the saying goes, “Life is something that happens to you when you are busy planning something else.”

For that matter, there is always mystery about what will happen in our lives the very next minute. Depending upon the situation, what happens may bring us happiness or joy, or cause frustration because of failure or delay. It may cause pain because of a significant loss, or challenge us with an opportunity. If we can understand these patterns, we can be prepared to handle the situation.

“To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect,” as Oscar Wilde wrote.

During unexpected events of happiness and joy — like being awarded a scholarship to a school, receiving a major job promotion, winning a prize for the article or photo you have submitted — it is easy to be so overwhelmed with happiness that we fail to handle things in the appropriate fashion.

So be prepared for sweet surprises and take time to evaluate. This helps keep people and things in perspective. If we carefully analyze our own or others’ success, we will realize that success is never spontaneous, but is instead associated with a combination of incremental effort.

It sometimes happens that in spite of our hard work and commitment, the results are delayed and we even have to face failure. Misfortunes and life tragedies are also unexpected, and it may feel as if our lives are doomed forever.

We must acknowledge that some things are not within our control. Our future attitude towards life and our further accomplishments depends upon how we handle such situations. Take courage and tell yourself that it’s all part of the game, and then move forward.

As Henry David Thoreau said, “I have learned that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”

Then there is the unexpected opportunity that appears in our lives. It may be the catalyst for a life-changing idea, or an opportunity to work for a great company; it might be also an opportunity to lead people. Life often presents such opportunities in the form of challenges.

Most of the time, we are not ready to seize the opportunity, because we have failed to plan and prepare properly. Quite surprisingly, when we are not sufficiently prepared, we may not even see the opportunity at all. Hence one should always train oneself to be prepared to seize unexpected opportunities.

As Paulo Coelho so rightly puts it, ‘‘We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.”

Our goal is to be prepared and to make the most of our lives.

Venkateswarlu Kadiveti.

Be Brave....

The mystery behind all human misery is fear, and the secret of human fortune is courage.

Courage is defined as the ability to face challenges, difficulty, uncertainty or pain without being overwhelmed by fear or being deflected from a chosen course of action. Mostly we are fearful of things that never happen in our life. In my opinion, to fear or to be unhappy about things in the future is like paying interest on the loan that you did not get.

Having said that, we all have to agree that fear is inevitable. Hence we have to invest in fear and master it in order to accomplish our goals.

Many say that fear is real, but according to our elders, it is only real to the extent of our imagination. With the exception of extreme and unwarranted situations, most common fears that we face in our day-to-day lives are only in our imagination. One of the main reasons for this kind of fear is self-doubt. Speaking in public, voicing your opinions, meeting people at a conference, asking for an opportunity that you have waited a long time for, accepting new challenges, adapting to new changes — these small things over a period of time matter a lot, and we have to recognize them early. We should dissect the reasons behind the fears that are hindering our progress.
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear — not absence of fear,” wrote Mark Twain.

The greatest difference between successful people and others is their ability to act in spite of fear. Even the most successful people have feelings of vulnerability, shame and hesitation, but the main difference is that they feel the fear and proceed anyway. The major cure for fear is taking action.
Make a list of your common fears. Just writing down your own fears will give you courage, which you can feel for yourself. This is because you have taken action to do something about your fears. While making the list, do not generalize your fears. Instead be specific. For example, when accepting new challenges, often it’s not the task itself but our own self-doubt about our capabilities, time management and similar concerns that magnify the fear. When asking for an opportunity, it is the fear of rejection that bothers us, more than our capabilities.

Hence, if we identify specific reasons behind our fears, they will become easier to handle. In the first place, if you can manage time and invest it learning new skills, you can handle new challenges effectively. In the second place, you should realize that if you attempt to do what you desire, the chances of failure and success are 50 percent, but if you make no attempt at all, failure is 100 percent certain. Then you should start to take specific actions. Reading, sharing and putting people and circumstances in proper perspective often liberates us from fear.

“Courage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other.” — Samuel Johnson
Remember the words above. For all the good you want to accomplish, feel the fear and do it anyway.

Venkateswarlu Kadiveti 

Change yourself for good

“They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom” — Confucius

One of my favorite quotes regarding the formula of success and failure comes from the motivational speaker Jim Rohn.  As he puts it, “A few simple disciplines practiced every day will lead to success and a few errors in judgment repeated every day will lead to failure.” This is a profound statement; it is important for us to change our lives in everyday disciplines.

Always be thankful for what you have already accomplished. Count your blessings at least twice a day. This will give you positive energy. Believe that you have potential to do more.

Everything takes time to learn, and even more time is needed to practice and make it a habit. It is always good to start with small things in a slow and steady manner. This will boost your confidence and encourage you to take bigger steps. As a caution, do not attempt to make overwhelming changes, which can lead to stress and loss of confidence. Be patient and practical with your expectations.

Remember Newton’s law of inertia. We can apply it to our habits too. The law of inertia is the tendency of an object to resist a change in motion. According to Newton, an object will stay at rest or stay in motion unless acted on by a net external force. So old habits, too, need an external force, called self-discipline, to bring out new, healthy habits.

Avoid cynics and be immune to criticism. When you adopt changes, guard against negative people. Always remember that only failed people will discourage you and claim that life is what it is. Successful people, on the other hand, will tell you how easy it is to adopt new disciplines and offer you proof of the benefits that change has to offer.

Try to put yourself in the company of similarly motivated people and achievers. If you want to lose weight, join a fitness club immediately. If you want to write a book, start associating with publishers and authors close to your community. If you want to learn a new skill, hang around people who are masters of that skill. This will help tremendously in adopting changes fast and retaining them for life.

As Henri Bergson wrote, “To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.”

So make small, slow and steady changes towards new disciplines for big, rapid and persistent results in future.

Venkateswarlu Kadiveti

Begin with Self-Education

“Human life should be purpose-driven. The purpose is to uplift one’s own self as well as society.”

Self-education is an important prerequisite to inspiration. Inspiration without self-education may lead to confusion and destruction. In addition to formal education, we want the kind of education that can liberate us from human weaknesses and give us the courage to pursue our dreams so we can benefit ourselves as well as society. To achieve this we first have to study ourselves, so that we may direct our energies towards a purpose.

Self-education includes two components. Knowing yourself means gathering information, about your daily routine or habits, the friends you hang out with, the relationships you are in and your achievements and failures. This helps you to know where you stand today. The second component is to understand yourself. This task requires an open mind and a change of perception, and it often requires a guide. Good books and a mentor can provide this. They can help you to understand why you are here, what you need to do to become a better person, and also to recognize your purpose in life.

The crucial part of life is to know yourself, because 100 percent of your life consists of you and your interactions with yourself and with the world. We often neglect this important point and spend endless energy analyzing others. The real education starts with self-analysis. So if you can replace the time that you spend thinking about others analyzing yourself, I assure you your life will never be the same.

Be a serious student in learning about this important subject called “you.”

Start today, start with small steps. Every day, make a habit of spending an hour with yourself working on these three things:

1. Appreciating things that you are grateful for in your life.
2. Revising your day mentally, thinking about how you would spend the day if you were given a chance to live it again.
3. Thinking about what good things you want to do before you leave this world that will positively impact others’ lives.

Add your own thoughts to this list if you wish.

Soon you will find your purpose and enough inspiration to change your life forever.

Life is a learning process...

Life is beautiful. Life is amazing. Life is wonderful. Life is everything.  Above all it is precious beyond our imagination.

The goal of every human being, either consciously or subconsciously, is to attain happiness and success. In one lifetime, we aspire to do little more than what we are doing today. We want to improve ourselves. This is a column for all such folks, including myself, who wish not only to become better but to excel at the art of living.

I draw inspiration from the success stories of people both extraordinary and ordinary, from books, from self-development seminars and, of course, from personal experiences.

“People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing. That's why we recommend it daily.” — Zig Zagler

We need inspiration on a regular basis. We need to nurture our mind with good thoughts. Then, and only then, can we make the choices and decisions that make our lives better. We have to have these doses of inspiration until inspiration becomes a habit. We should practice to a point where we begin to absorb, attract and radiate positive things unconsciously.

My intention in writing this column is to share with you stories, articles and material so that we can have an exchange of ideas, consciously working toward self-improvement and spreading awareness throughout our community. We are already successful in that we have become part of this beautiful institution, but with constant inspiration around us, we can do even better both at a personal and a professional level.

Everything in life is acquired, whether in the form of learning, new experiences and perceptions. The net result is what we are today.  The quality of the rest of our lives depends on the same factors. Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to be.” Once you commit to it, everything will change for you, but you need perseverance and patience.

We have to consciously change ourselves and analyze the results until the changes become a part of us. To get the best out of every minute of our lives, let us design our lives. It’s the most precious thing we have. Let us not wait until it is too late.

Design your life. Think and dwell upon it every minute, until you create that one beautiful design. Design it now and start learning the art of living today.